A classic California chard, stylish, with finesse, light oak.

Cali dreamin’I’m nipping to California (if only) to bring you this wine created by winemaker Jill Russell.Cambria Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay 2017 is a celebration of the delicious journey a chardonnay can take in California. The wine has spent six months in oak, some of it new, but it isn’t shouty.Freshly sliced green apples say hello, then fruits with an apple crumble character raise their hands in greeting. Tropical fruit and citrus notes are pretty keen to be involved in the palate party.The proprietor of Cambria Estate Winery is Barbara Banke; the wine is named after one of her daughters, Katie Jackson; and its made by Jill. Girl power!

Subtle aromas of sweet berries, Spanish cedar and blackberries with some black mushrooms. Medium-to full-bodied with fine yet chewy tannins and a long finish. Solid and racy. Tight now. Drink after 2024.

Sommelier Tries 20 White Wines Under $15So next up, we have Kendall Jackson. This is the Vintners Reserve chardonnay and this is from California 2018. This is a name that we all know, it's one of the big players in the wine industry. First off, lots of tropical fruit. Pineapple, papaya, a little bit of green mango. Get lots of like luscious vanilla. And that's due to the oak. It's not over the top buttery and rich in that style. And there's kind of just, just whack, it just like hits you right in the mouth. You know, I think at $11 I think you could find some other great interesting wines at that price point. But if this is your jam, this is your jam and $11, you know, it works.

40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 59% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot. Which is a bit more merlot and a lot less petit verdot than was used to make the 2018.My initial impression was that this is a more voluptuous style than normal but then it quickly honed and straightened. This is complex, energetic, ripe and just plain lovely; it’s medium in weight, herb-flecked and clearly from the cabernet family and yet it’s seamless and svelte too. Seductive but with extras. True to itself but not without flair. You get the idea. It’s good. Structural but with freshness and flesh.

The 2018 Lassègue has a really gorgeous bouquet of luscious dark cherry fruit, cassis, crushed violets and vanilla pod. It becomes increasingly floral with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied and sweet with supple tannins. Licorice and brown spices filter through the black fruit, leading to a satin-textured finish. Very seductive and quite heady, this is a Saint-Émilion that clearly has ambitions, though overall I find it just a little too sweet.

An elegant blend of ripe peach and crisp, citrus fruit, with a refreshing, cool salinity, this is a sunshine Chardonnay that is anything but blousy. Subtle oak pops through on the palate in the form of cooking spices and a touch of smoke, creating a flavoursome wine in perfect balance.

The 13 Best New Merlots to Buy Right NowThis 10-year-old from the La Jota vineyard honoring Howell Mountain wine pioneer W.S. Keyes (he planted it in the late 1800s)—just re-released—is a delicious argument for aging great Merlot. Still fresh with bright fruit and acidity, it’s offering complex layers of flavor and aromas now. Loam and pencil shavings are showing under berry liqueur and dark chocolate. Ripe but elegantly firm tannins give structure to spicy black raspberry and cherry, with mountain intensity carrying through a lingering finish.

One to satisfy any ardent California chardonnay fan. Butter on the nose and butter on the palate, with rich and bright pineapple and lemon curd. The best part is the fresh acidity to provide balance to the oak and the ripe fruit.

I’ve always loved Brewer-Clifton wines, and I’m not the only one who does. But this sample was showing outrageously well when I had it, with big bing cherries and a note of cigar-box in spite of the fact that the winery states that this wine was aged on neutral oak. Brewer-Clifton prides itself on technical mastery of the winemaking process, including whole cluster fermentation, in which stems are left to be fermented with the grapes. This probably has a lot to do with that cedar cigar box flavor. Whatever… I was rolling my eyes with delight. And that was before I heard the super-value price.

2017 was a solid vintage marred only by the horrific wildfires that swept through the region in October. The nose alone will tell you this wine was picked just prior to the fires. Both floral and mineral, with exotic spice penetrating the wine from front to back. The wine was fermented in stainless steel and then underwent native malolactic fermentation in barrels to round acidity and softly integrate the vanillin character of French oak (94% new). It is barrel aged for months and is bottled without fining or filtration. The blend is 94/3/1.5/1.5 cabernet sauvignon, malbec, cabernet franc, and petit verdot, and it is a giant of a wine packed full of black and blue fruit, purity, and a bony cedar tannic backbone. It will require a decade to rest and settle into a wine you can enjoy by the bottle. For now, a glass or two with a favourite steak is the best way to explore this terrific wine. Mt. Brave Vineyard sits high atop Mt. Veeder at an elevation of 1,400 to 1,800 feet on an area planted since the early 1860s. On the western flank of Napa Valley, the estate is named for the native Wappos, who first called it home. The mountain site is all about high elevation and thin, rocky soils planted to four cabernet clones (191, 4, 8, and 337) and three rootstocks (3309C, 101-14, and 1103P) that combine to neutralize some of the issues in what is usually a slow-moving, long, cool growing season above the fog line.

This special limited release Santa Maria Valley chardonnay was established in 1981. The vineyard sits 350-450 feet above sea level, not far from the California Coast in a rare east-west mountain range that opens to almost daily cooling marine air from the Pacific Ocean. The result is a long, cool growing season that produces intense flavours (think New Zealand) with naturally high acidity. The nose is awash in tropical notes of guava, lime, mango, and vanilla. The palate is equally rich but with some mineral undertones from the ancient seabed that sits under the vineyard. The wine is getting drier and more complex every year, upping its quality quotient. Think lobster or any butter-based fish or creamy pasta. It's 40+ years, clone 4 chardonnay grown on its own roots, and barrel aged 7 months in French oak (39 percent new).

A quarter century of winemaking at Hartford Family Winery has seen incremental improvements, rewarding for all. The winery, located in Forestville in the heart of the Russian River Valley, is a vital part of the Jackson Family Wines collection, and specializes in small lot wines. Once rich, thick, and powerful, the wines have gathered a new sensibility over the last five years, reigning in the power and weight to some extent to let the fruit and terroir poke through. This 2018 is a great example of a more modern California chardonnay style, not screechingly acidic but rather hedonistically well formed with cooler flavours of pear, peach, ginger, pineapple, and warm brioche, finishing with honey, spice, and minerality. Lobster, crab, roasted chicken, and fish dishes all work here.

Julia's Vineyard was originally planted in the 1970s, and was named for Julia Jackson in 1988 after the Jackson family purchased the winery two years earlier. You feel the warmth of Santa Maria Valley here, both in terms of the darker fruit profile and the rich, glycerous texture. But it's nicely balanced by savoury notes of underbrush and flint, with well-integrated oak spice. Already drinking well now, thanks to its silky tannins, serve this with a slight chill to bring out more freshness. It's serious pinot that's a steal at this price. Recommended.

If you want to know what’s up in modern Napa, check out this merlot based mix: 91.5% merlot, 5.8% cabernet sauvignon and 2.5% petit verdot, of which 77 percent is mountain fruit from Keyes Vineyard on Howell Mountain (63%) and Stagecoach Vineyard (14%) on Atlas Mountain. The remainder comes from the Oakville, Calistoga, and Rutherford area on the floor of Napa Valley. The mountain fruit has transformed this wine, giving it more purpose, far beyond the merlot mould. The palate is enticing with medium spice, perfect oak, and a mix of blue and red fruit that assimilate most winemaking and barrel work. You can drink this now with food or cellar through 2030 and beyond.

It is year 19 for the Viognier label, and it arrives with a great flavour profile. It is 92 percent fermented in Stainless steel for freshness, with an additional 8 percent fermenting in a concrete egg to add some texture and mouthfeel to the finished wine. The growing season started cool before moving to a warmer than average summer followed by a cool finish — perhaps best for tuning all of the viognier’s panoply of flavours to a perfect pitch. Look for an exotic orange blossom and jasmine nose that spills across the palate that adds some green apple freshness and subtle notes of bitter lime for complexing — a delicious and stylish viognier that walks the tightrope of richness and leanness to a tee.

Mid-straw in colour, with some bronze tints. The aromas are of wheat, hessian, nuts and haybales, really savoury and expressive. The palate is mid-weight, with flavours of white peach and apricot kernel, there's also a nuttiness and a hint of honey. The wine has a little phenolic grip and combined with the acidity, it gives excellent structure and savouriness to the finish.

The colour is quite deep in colour, with bronzed hues. Aromas of cut-hay, candied orange and a nuttiness. A richly-textured wine that has a real presence on the palate. There's tangy, citrus flavours melding with a grippy, mealy, savoury, phenolic dryness that gives the palate some real length.

This pale straw-colored Sauvignon Blanc opens with a nectarine pit and yellow grapefruit bouquet with hints of fresh cut grass, green apple and green pepper. On the palate, this wine is light plus bodied with gentle acidity. The flavor profile is white grapefruit and lime blend with notes of stony minerality and green apple candy. The finish is dry and drifts away nicely. The Panel would pair this Sauvignon Blanc with crab avocado stack salad, crab cakes or oysters.

As big and as sprawling as it is, the Sonoma Coast AVA is known for its strong maritime influence due to fog moderating the warm summer temperatures. It is always the richest version of the brand's many chardonnays, mixing ripe red apple and lemon curd with orange and coating baking spice and vanilla-scented oak. It boasts a broad mix of clones, all barrel fermented and aged seven months in a mix of French (75%) and American (25%), but only 17 percent is new. It is a perfect chardonnay vintage and a wine you can enjoy now through 2023. Dungeness crab is a terrific match in British Columbia.

Winemaker Randy Ullom has does a fine job of keeping this wine in play, tightening the structure and restraining the sweetness as much as possible without upsetting its millions of customers. It is part of the new California chardonnay style. It all begins with some impressive fruit sourcing up and down the Golden State’s coolest hillside vineyards influenced by the Pacific Ocean from Mendocino to Santa Barbara. Look for a bright and lush palate of ripe peaches, a touch of caramel candy, and creamy, buttery lees all freshened by an acidity that sets off the tropical pineapple and Meyer lemon. Pair with lobster, crab, butter chicken, or popcorn.

Cool-climate is a good descriptor of this Monterey pink made from pinot noir. The nose is aromatic with notes of strawberries, watermelon, and mandarin that spill onto the palate with equal freshness. The finish is clean, if a bit short, but hey, it's rosé, not rocket science. Serve cool with your favourite charcuterie plate, and let the summer begin.

Avant is all stainless steel fermented and bottled under a screwcap, a reliable recipe to rein in its bright tropical fruit. In 2019, the wine was 50% Monterey County (lemony citrus and mineral notes), 36% Santa Barbara County (fresh pineapple), and 14% Mendocino County (juicy green apple flavours). This wine has put on a little mid-palate weight to add to its ripe, sweet fruit. It is ready to drink all summer with your choice of west coast seafood or creamy cheese dishes.

“Full fruit” is a trite expression in the wine business, oftentimes used as an excuse for wine that has no complexity. What a stunner it is to taste a wine that has so many points of flavor, including primary lemon, pear, and peach flavors, as well as earthier flavors of caramel and treacle, yet tastes like wine, not grape juice. The restrained oak and clean palate on this wine truly makes you pause and reflect, as you slowly break out into a smile.

Women are making it in the bigger corporates as well. In California, the substantial Jackson Family Wines business is run by Barbara R Banke, who co-founded the company with her late husband and has run it alone since his death in 2011; she has employed women winemakers in three of their divisions, including Jill Russell, who leads an all-female winemaking team at the Cambria estate in Santa Barbara, and whose inaugural vintage of Cambria’s Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay 2017 has already been justly celebrated: a lovely wine that strikes a perfect balance between weight, oak, citrus, refreshing stone-fruit flavours and hints of spice.